THE NEW YORK TIMES: As President Trump tries to coerce European leaders over Greenland, they are pondering the unthinkable: Is an 80-year-old alliance doomed?
What happens to an 80-year-old diplomatic alliance when its leading power threatens a military invasion of one member, wages economic war on the others and vows to cultivate political and cultural resistance to their governments?
Is the alliance doomed?
That question is being asked in capitals across Europe as leaders rush to respond to President Trump’s rapidly escalating campaign to acquire Greenland over the objections of the people who live there. At issue most urgently is whether resisting Mr. Trump’s territorial ambitions risks damaging Europe’s relationship with the United States beyond repair.
Some leaders — like President Emmanuel Macron of France and Lars Klingbeil, Germany’s finance minister — appear willing to take that risk, urging Europe’s nations to consider deploying an economic “bazooka” in response to Mr. Trump’s latest tariff threats.
Leaders from across Europe are expected to gather in Brussels this week to present a united response to Mr. Trump’s provocations. Veteran observers of European politics said the alliance between Europe and the United States that formed in the aftermath of World War II had already been fundamentally altered.
It is no longer an alliance designed primarily to advance the interests of like-minded democracies, they said. Instead, it is a relationship on Mr. Trump’s terms alone — one in which he wields the leverage that comes from American power to force Europeans to cater to his whims. » | Michael D. Shear | Reporting from Oxford, England | Monday, January 19, 2026
F*** Trump! F*** America! — © Mark Alexander
